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Sunday, March 7, 2010

This is the sixth week in my attempt to follow the workout in Steve Speirs's book 7 Weeks to 100 Pushups. This is actually the fifth week of the book's schedule, as you will remember that I repeated the third week. And just like last week, I've listed the workout schedule for each day, followed by what I actually did. (The "R" stands for Ruthless Golf.)

In case you're just joining in, I skipped last Friday's workout. I planned to do the workout Saturday, then decided not to because a chronic sore shoulder problem made some major healing progress when I didn't work out. The shoulder continued to heal throughout the weekend, but I knew Monday's workout would be a bear... and it was:

M: 18 - 22 - 18 - 18 - 28+R: 18 - 22 - 18 - 18 - 18

That's a total of 94 pushups, 16 more than I did last Wednesday, so the healing time appears to have been well-spent. The left shoulder is still a bit sore and (as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago) the right shoulder is still noticeably weaker than the left. I have decided that I need to make some further adjustments to the workout schedule, adjustments that might not be needed if my shoulders didn't have the problems I mentioned.

Here is my change: The workout suggests resting 60 seconds between sets, longer if necessary. I had been trying 90 seconds for the last couple of weeks; today, I went to 2.5 minutes between the third and fourth sets (the fourth set was still tough, but I wouldn't have made it if I hadn't), and between 4 and 5 minutes between the last two sets. I think I should have tried the 2.5 minute rest from the start, and that's what I plan to do starting Wednesday. As you will see when you read about this Wednesday's workout, the program makes a major change this week and I suspect I'll need the extra rest.

Still, I'm certainly making progress despite not being able to do the full number of pushups in the last set... and this with the shoulder problems. I'm extremely pleased.

So for Wednesday I decided to allow 2 minutes of rest between each set, and 2.5 minutes before the last set. As you can see, there are more sets this time, but fewer pushups in several of them:

Clearly the extra time made a big difference in my performance. I missed the total goal by 10 pushups (again), but I did a total of 107 pushups -- 13 more than my best on Monday -- and made a new record in the final set. For those of you who are considering this program, you may find it more beneficial to allow 2 minutes of rest rather than the 1 minute Speirs recommends in his book. (He does say you can increase the rest period if you need to. Obviously I needed to.)

And so we come to Friday. Another late workout because I was busy most of the day.

And again I didn't complete the last set. I'm pretty happy that I'm finishing all the other sets, since I couldn't do that for quite a while. And I did 115 pushups total, up 8 from Wednesday; doing this quantity of pushups this quickly, that's a fairly big increase. So, all-in-all, I'd call this a pretty good week.

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About Me

Author of several golf books including Ruthless Putting and Stop Coming Over-the-Top, and editor of Classic Adventure Stories: Swashbucklers, a collection of classic sword-fighting novels. I've also done some writing for Golfsmith.com.

I'm a writer, cartoonist, graphic artist & self-publisher who's played in a few local pro golf tournaments. The challenge of learning new things really appeals to me. And I don't believe age should ever keep you from chasing your dreams.

I also write children's easy reader books under the pen name Mick Michaels, and poetry under the pen name Will Shakespeare.